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A Married Woman

Jean-Luc Godard originally titled this The Married Woman, but the French censors took exception to the article, afraid that the foreign public would reach the wrong conclusion about French marriages in general, and also saw fit to remove a shot of a bidet. Otherwise, this is still Godard’s view of life in France in 1964, and one of his most sociological films, as well as one of his most formally accomplished. Macha Meril stars as a woman who oscillates between her husband (an airplane pilot) and her lover (an actor); beautiful use is made of Beethoven’s ninth quartet, of a rather elliptical and abstract depiction of lovemaking, and of the wisdom of Roger Leenhardt, a neglected director and film critic of the 40s and 50s who figures here as one of Godard’s resident sages. (JR)